I wish I could see the Mersey floor
and touch the greatness
that the city of Liverpool
is built upon,
the pounding heart
that sweeps in daily,
lucid dreaming,
hard fact reality in which nothing beautiful
is ever truly forgotten;
this Mersey providence
full of Mercy,
full of hope, I wish
I could be part of it.
Ian D. Hall 2017
I’m afraid I don’t do Rugby, of either code
except when it comes to watching England V Scotland
and the odd par-taking
of a World Cup; sport for sports sake, not my bag
or ball it seems,
despite having had a teacher at school who insisted
in one of those terrifying end of year reports
that I was more suited to the game,
a natural player, I nearly laughed as I read it
on the way home, so not my cup of tea,
despite having had the honour of watching
They Say,
There is a fine line
between love and hate,
that’s like saying there is just
a shade of difference between
wanting to drink the poison
offered you and wanting to
see the sun shine
with all the heat of a beautiful summer’s day;
there is no difference, mostly
it is indifference, I don’t
think about you
but when I do
it is only with the grim satisfaction
that one day
you will never see another Augusts’ afternoon
and I will not have to listen
It’s brief,
short and to the point
as per usual
when we talk on the telephone,
only truly opening up
to each other when we sit
and take up room on the sofa.
It is my fault,
I am lost in the minefield
of unexploded conversation
when technology is the preferred state of
carrying words;
yet when I am
face to face
with you
my son, our chats
mean the world to me.
Ian D. Hall 2017
I am of Cornish blood,
it hangs in my veins like the apple
orchard that hugged the cliff
looking down on The Tamar,
rough water leading to two miles of joined land,
looking across to Plymouth
and the Hoe in which I kicked a football
and the early swimming lessons in the sea stormed
and tossed lido, perfect on summer’s days
with ice cream in hand
and the barnacles wading in with the march
of the sea.
I am of Cornish blood, it races through my veins,
In wasting away by wasting the day,
a certain call from the crow on the church
roof reminds me that the rest
of the time available to me
as I spin in the void
is now in the red, I owe
Time, meaningless,
malingering Time,
a bomb waiting to explode
and Big Ben crumbles
but Time is to be honoured,
I am in debt to Time,
the second, the minute, the hour strikes
as the sun dips behind the crumbling edifice
of Johnson’s Cleaners;
Was it possible to feel jealousy
after so long of denying it existed
in my psyche, as I watched the young
poet, the woman of words
pour her life into my beaker
on a Monday night and make it overflow.
I don’t find jealousy attractive,
it is an emotional state
that leads to a rotten core
and Hamlet is no relation of mine
and his uncle an excuse to behave
like a bastard.
I muse all night and thankfully,
jealousy is not the cause, to find
Like Samson, my hair
is not for sale,
mine though is not a sign
of heroic strength,
masculinity of its alleged highest form,
more in the way
that when it is short
I look like a thug
in the mirror, polished
but with dusty edges of time
throwing back images of the one hair cut
I forced myself to have
and how
in the end
I just stood anonymous
in the crew.
Ian D. Hall 2017
My inner adult
refuses to join in the games
saying that tiddlywinks
and marbles
are but amusements for children.
It sits in solace, whilst the outer child
smiles and pokes fun,
creates rhymes, draws illusion
and wonders at magic tricks, never understanding
how they truly work,
and yet the bullet trick is the one the adult,
hiding in the shell,
giggles and hopes
will pop a balloon, latex burst with a bang.
Ian D. Hall 2017
Trade in new Sloops,
Dinghies and Yachts
has sky rocketed this last
quarter,
yet
a downturn is predicted
to hit growth
as there is no forecasted wind
to hit our shores this summer.
A spokesman
said
today, that sails
are likely to be down
for the foreseeable future.
Ian D. Hall 2017